Colors of sins
by lizaYoung
Summary: Normally she started to work around seven and not – like today – more than two hours earlier. Normally.  But this case was not normal, not even from the VCTF's point of view, although they were quite used to odd cases.   Not to such a case.
1. Prologue

Colors of sins

Prologue

"Bailey, you should have a look at this!" Somehow in a hurry the young man came running into the office of Special Agent Malone.

Bailey knew these appearances of his colleague and smiled amused. "What's the matter, George?"

The younger man, who not long ago had still been a police-known but nevertheless gifted hacker until Bailey had taken him into his team, shove a sheet of paper right under his bosses nose. "Look at this!" he repeated.

Bailey took the sheet out of his hand, frowned and read it, and the frown deepened.

"I got this e-mail ten minutes ago", Fraley explained. "At the beginning I didn't see it at all, but then... What shall we do with it?"

Malone looked up. "What would you say?"

"Me?" Fraley was taken by surprise. It was rare that his boss asked him for his opinion. He hesitated, glanced at the paper then said: "Well, I'd think it to be...unfair somehow not to answer her. Just 'cause she had the courage to write to us."

Bailey skimmed through the mail once more. "And her interest also doesn't seem to be pretended..." He lifted his head and looked into George's face. "Subject her to an exam."

His mouth open George stared at him. "What?"

Malone smiled amused. „Ask her some questions. She's written she'd dealt close with our unit – I wanna know how good she really knows us. Who applies somewhere has to pass an entrance examination. Come on, George! You know how this works!"

Still irritated and even not really convinced Fraley nodded slowly and left Malone's office.

Giving another amused smile the Special Agent leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head.


	2. Welcome tribunal

Welcome tribunal

Rain! Fog! White frost! Cold! Darkness!

In the morning, in the evening...

No matter when twenty-seven-years-old Kimberley Warner, shortly called Kim by friends and colleagues, left her apartment or the VCTF headquarters in the heart of Atlanta, she always found herself in the deepest November again – without any transition.

The autumn here's not really better than at home, she thought with a mixture of wistfulness and anger of her home country Germany, which she, the child of a German mother and a former American soldier, had left to move to the home country of her father and to get herself trained as a profiler with the best elite unit of the FBI. Uncomfortably she turned up the collar of her brown coat and fastened her steps to escape from the disgusting drizzle as fast as possible. If California would be able to keep its law, which guaranteed sunshine to the inhabitants of the state, under these conditions? Thank God the way was not long from her apartment to her working place!

Kim reached the headquarters of the VCTF, the Violent Crimes Task Force, before the rain could wet her completely. Light and agreeable warmth received her as she stepped through the entrance door. Quickly Kim opened her coat and ran both hands through her medium-length brown hair to stroke it out of her collar. With few long steps she crossed the entrance hall and entered the elevator with the obvious VCTF logo on its door; the only special unit of the FBI specialized in working on crimes committed by repeat offenders – and besides, the only one working with a medium as a profiler.

Or better with two of them.

Kim left the elevator and determined made her way down the corridor. On her left side some doors led into the offices of the Agents and Special Agents working here. On the right side the corridor was bordered by a railing, over what one could see down into a room which was almost perfectly circular and lying about two meters deeper. That gave one the feeling of standing on a gallery. Despite of the early hour there was bustling activity all over the room. On one side, very close to the stairway, a separated room bordered the circle – the conference room, where Bailey usually talked the cases over with his team.

"Good morning, Kim!"

The young woman winced and spun around. The unexpected salutation had frightened her. But immediately a smile appeared on her face as she saw who was standing behind her.

It was a young man who grinned at her amused. Naturally he had noticed how much she had been frightened.

"Do you always have to frighten me so much!" she hissed at him, drew a deep breath and added a bit calmer: "Good morning, John."

His grin became even broader and a mischievous sparkle appeared in his eyes while running his fingers through his short hair, which in Kim's eyes never could decide if it wanted to be dark blond, brown or black. This was Agent John Grant, through and trough!

He reached out and touched her hair. "You're wet!"

Kim snorted. "I say! What did you expect? It's rainin'!"

He cast her a strange glance. "I thought you'd be able to walk between the rain drops?"

For a second Kim was speechless, but then it dawned on her which way the wind was blowing, and she nodded. "Normally yes, but today they're simply too tiny, you know?" she returned so sincerely that Grant was inclined for a moment to take her seriously.

Then she grinned at him, and both burst out laughing.

"What is that funny? I wanna laugh, too!"

Simultaneously both young agents turned. Standing right in front of them was Special Agent Dr Samantha Waters.

The trained psychotherapist formed the heart of the VCTF. Without her they would hardly have been able to do the job they were doing. Sam had the ability to see what happened in a crime from the point of view of both the victim and the doer, and that ofttimes provided them valuable hints on the doer.

Kim had a similar ability. That's why she was here.

With the difference that Sam had been asked to join the team and Kim had managed to get into on her own. The e-mail she had sent to Bailey's team had been an impudence, to tell the truth, and exactly because of this reason Kimberley had never expected to get an answer. The more she had been surprised when she really got one – a distinctive nice answer, which included ten questions. The sense of theses questions Kim had only got when she two days after answering them got the message that she had been taken into the VCTF team.

Special Agent Malone had got her tested! And obviously she had passed the exam.

This had been three months ago. Three months now she was already working together with the best agents the FBI had to offer...

"Come on, you two, Bailey's already waitin' for us!" Sam's voice broke in on Kim's thoughts. Right! That's why she was in the office that early today. Normally she started to work around seven and not – like today – more than two hours earlier.

Normally.

But this case was not normal, not even from the VCTF's point of view, although they were quite used to odd cases.

Not to such a case.


	3. Team meeting

Team meeting

"Good morning all together", Sam greeted when entering the conference room before Kim and John, and the two younger agents followed the greet. The other team members were already sitting around the big, rectangular table: Special Agent Bailey Malone, a tall, well-built but nevertheless slim man with chiseled features that had fascinated Kim right from the first day; as well Dr Grace Alvarez, an Afro-American who worked as a pathologist; and Kim's favorite of the team, the composed, a bit timid computer expert George Fraley, who taught her the basics of IT beside her training as a profiler – very sound basics, by the way. The story how he had learned those basics himself made Kim smile again and again every time she thought of it. The three returned the morning greet and waited until the newcomers had taken a seat, then Bailey gave them a short overview of why he had ordered them to come to the office that early an hour.

What he had to tell described the oddest case they had ever worked on. "Folks", Malone began, "I've already seen quite a lot of things within my career, but never somethin' like that. George!" he turned to the younger agent with an inviting gesture. George nodded and typed a quick command into his laptop. A picture appeared on the big screen forming the back of the conference room. It presented a slim, fair-skinned man wearing a white linen suit. "His name's Daniel Caine", George explained. "32, owner of a brothel. His parents come from Kentucky." Another quick command, another picture. "Belinda Warren", Fraley gave a name to the attractive young woman with the blond hair almost reaching her hips. "27, from New York. One of the most sought-after models here in Georgia." A third picture appeared. The man shown on it was older, wore a black jacket and a suitcase in his hand. His dark hair was parted neatly.

Kim cast George a quick glance. "A banker?"

Fraley nodded. "Stephen James, his name's program. 53, the best shares seller Atlanta has. This way they looked until now. And this way they were found." He hit a button. The movement had something final.

Not only Kim lost control of her features as the pictures changed.

"This way the corpses were found", Bailey repeated quietly. Also the experienced Special Agent was still shocked by what he saw. "All of 'em were naked; their cloths were lyin' next to them – orderly fold."

But it was not this what shocked the agents that much.

It was the color.

John was the first to get his speech back. "What did he do to them – put 'em into a color bath?"

All corpses were colored from the head to the feet – the body of the model disappeared under a thick coat of yellow paint, the banker had been painted green by the murderer and the body of the brothel owner was adorned now by a shining pink.

"No", Grace answered John's question as calm as you like, as it was typical for her. "He's sprayed them – with waterproof graffiti color. I needed a couple of hours to remove enough of the color to be able to recognize the victims, at least!"

"How did they die?" Bailey wanted to know.

"They were strangled", Grace replied. "He strangled them with bare hands. But before you ask – don't hold out any hopes. The color destroyed all possible finger prints."

"Sure it took a lot of strength to strangle the three with the hands", John said. "At least the men..."

"He's hated them", Sam interfered quietly and shook her head subconsciously while taking the pictures in. "He's put a lot of energy into these murders."

"And he's made time", Kim added. She was also put into the situation of the murder by seeing those pictures but saw the course of the events differently than Sam, as they knew meanwhile. That gave the profilers the chance to complement each other perfectly. "He seems to feel secure while committin' the crime. I don't feel any restlessness."

Kim could experience the crime on the emotive level of the doer, while Sam could see the course of action of the doer from the point of view of both the doer and the victim – two aspects of the personality that together produced a more or less clear picture. "And he thinks himself to be right; he believes they'd deserve it."

"What?" Bailey asked. "The death? Or the color?"

Kim shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe both."

"I don't get why he makes such an effort to paint the dead", John said.

"The colors mean somethin' to him", Sam responded. "He's gone to a lot of trouble to do this – the colors seem to be important to him."

"He tries to present somethin'", Bailey thought. "An artist? Someone to work with colors in his job?"

At the same time Sam and Kim shook their heads.

"No", Sam contradicted. "In this case he'd've used real color, no graffiti color. To artists colors are very important; they are their language. To them graffiti color's..."

"...wrong", Kim finished the sentence. "But not the color itself but the fact that it's sprayed. This makes the painting impersonal."

"Maybe this is exactly the point", Bailey suggested. "Maybe he tries to take away their personality by paintin' them?"

"In this case he wouldn't've gone through such a lot of trouble", Sam fended off. "No, I'd guess he tries to point out somethin' with the color. We shall see somethin' very special in those victims – but what?" Almost helplessly she shook her head.

"George, are there any similarities between the victims?" Malone wanted to know.

Fraley sighed and shook his head. "Couldn't find any till now. Different age, different sex; they came from different states, had different jobs... There's nothin' what would connect 'em except the fact all of 'em are white, but this fits to at least fifty percent of the people here in Georgia."

"Go on searchin'!" Malone ordered. "There has to be a reason why he choose them particularly! What does the profile look like until now, Kim? Sam?" he turned to the profilers.

The two exchanged a gaze. "Male, likely white", Sam began. "I rule out a racist background of these murders. He's strong, probably quite tall, otherwise he wouldn't've been able to strangle his victims only with his hands."

"He's got a strong, if not extreme sense of justice", Kim continued. "He differs meticulously between right and wrong. He thinks to punish his victims for somethin', and they would deserve this punishment."

"He's bloody exact in what he's doin'", Dr Waters added. "Possible that this precision belongs to his job."

"This doesn't really narrow down the search", John asked to consider.

"No, but it's a start", Bailey said. At the same moment his cell phone rang. He took the call and introduced himself then listened silently for a while. Only once he asked: "Where?" and finally said goodbye by saying: "We're on our way." Then he hung up and looked at his colleagues one after the other. "We've got our next victim."


	4. Visiting crime scene

Visiting crime scene

Together with Kim, Sam and John Bailey drove to Downtown Atlanta. This district had been Grant's former area of responsibility as a cop, but this didn't mean that he liked it to return here – more on the contrary. No one of them felt at ease here – Downtown was a dubious district even here in Atlanta.

Near a shopping center Bailey parked his black Jeep. Walking they did the last meters to the place where the corpse had been found, which was already cordoned and lightened up as bright as day. Cops were busy to keep curious persons away – among others a real swarm of journalists.

"Those paparazzi are unbearable!" John snarled next to Kim. "Where do they know about this right now? It's half past five!"

"They listen to the police radio", Bailey replied from the front without turning. "We know that, but we can't stop 'em."

John snorted, but bit back a respond when Malone turned and John caught his warning look.

An older man came along the agents. He was smaller than Bailey, stocky, with sparse hair and seemed to be a bit deranged. Kim knew him. That was Detective Philip White, a leading officer of the Atlanta Police Department. The department had actually nothing to do with the FBI, but sometimes a case kept both departments busy, and so of course the agents knew each other.

"Detective White!" Bailey said, when he recognized the man.

White ran his fingers through his hair. "Agent Malone!" he returned. Faint relief was in his voice.

Kim couldn't suppress a grin. She could understand the relief. The detectives did _not _know how to take these odd murders. Surely not.

With a gesture Detective White told the officers standing at the cordon to let the agents pass by then followed them close.

Although Kim was used to the sight of dead people meanwhile – also to the sight of battered ones – she winced when she saw the victim. Indeed the condition of the corpse played not that big a part this time. What gave the young woman such a fright was the color the murderer had used this time. The not really clear brown shade made unpleasant associations come to her mind. "Good that George can't see this here", she murmured quietly at Sam.

Dr Waters just nodded silently. She had had similar thoughts.

Kim remained standing some steps away from the corpse and took the crime scene in. Like every time she got the feeling of seeing a movie shortly afterward, when she saw through the eyes of the murderer for some parts of a second. It was over soon, and what remained was just a feeling of satisfaction. This emotion didn't belong to her, Kim knew. They belonged to the murderer.

Kim looked at Sam.

The older profiler had stepped close to the corpse and squatted down next to it. She had seen pictures in her mind as well – strong hands grabbing suddenly, the desperate try to fight the grab. It had been senseless. Hurriedly Sam stroked her blond hair out of her face.

Bailey stepped close to her and squatted down himself.

Kim even wanted to follow him as John stepped next to her. "And?"

Warner shrugged. "Same like with the others. He makes time, it feels right to him what he does."

Grant nodded. "White and his folks have found some witnesses within the crowd. Gonna talk to 'em, maybe someone's really seen somethin' interestin'."

His young colleague nodded, looked after him, when he went toward the cordon, then made a move to go to Sam and Bailey for the second time. Suddenly she noticed a movement out of the corner of her eyes and stopped.

A man left the crowd of spectators and came toward the investigators. He was tall and well-built, but nevertheless very slim; his hair was short, straight and blond with a faint hint of red, and he moved with an agility that reminded Kim of a cat somehow. His walk was springy, but didn't seem energetic. Much more it was a way which seemed to be almost lurking.

From the very first moment the man was disagreeable to Kim. This came surprising for herself for she didn't know this from herself. She followed him slowly as he went toward Sam and Bailey. If he had noticed the young agent he ignored her well, but she wasn't even sure that he had noticed her at all.

Determined he crossed the cordoned place and headed for the two agents kneeling next to the corpse.

Bailey, who had noticed a movement from the corner of his eyes as well as Kim, saw him coming along and rose from his squatting position with a fluid movement to go to meet the stranger some steps away. "What're ye doin' here?" he received him reserved, but not really unfriendly. "Please leave the cordoned space! You're standin' at a crime scene!"

The man nodded unimpressed. "I know. Agent Malone?"

Bailey nodded as well, but didn't make a move to give the other one a handshake. "May I ask you where from...?"

"I'm district attorney Dan Jefferson", the other one interrupted as though he hadn't even heard Bailey's started question.

Malone got the matter immediately. Jefferson still didn't hold the position of the leading district attorney for a long time until now, that's why they had never met before although it was not really rare that the FBI got in contact with the prosecuting attorney's office. Nevertheless he knew the name, and now he even returned the offered handshake. "I'm glad to get you to know", he said and turned to beckon to Sam and Kim, who had stepped next to them meanwhile. "Special Agent Dr Samantha Waters and Special Agent Kimberley Warner", he introduced the two young women and turned again, this time to the other side. There, some meters away and absorbed in a talk to an older woman, John Grant was standing at the cordon. "And that's Agent John Grant", Bailey finished his introduction.

Jefferson scrutinized all of them for a while then nodded at every one shortly and greeting. "I don't wanna disturb you in your work, Agent Malone", he said then turned back to Bailey. "I was told you would be workin' on this case, and 'cause I wasn't far away from here I wanted to use the chance given and to get to know you and your team." With his head he gestured toward the corpse: "I've never seen somethin' like this before, to be honest. Hope you'll soon catch the guy who's done this. I'd love it too much to talk to him – how on earth do you get the idea to spray a corpse with color?" Shaking his head he turned away and returned to the cordon.

Without caring about him for one more second Sam and Bailey turned back to the dead. Only Kim kept staring after the district attorney for a moment. Something seemed to be wrong with this man, but still she was not able to say what it basically was. Finally she decided not to think about it any more and stepped close to the corpse, too.

Bailey turned his head and looked at her. "So?"

Kim gestured at Sam inviting. Automatically she let the older and more experienced profiler go ahead.

Sam bent her head and sighed. "He's acted the same way like with the other victims – he kills them, removes their cloths then colors them." She took a look around and shook her head. "He's killed her here, what means the place doesn't matter to him at all." Her gaze wandered to the cloths of the victim lying about two meters away, orderly fold – exactly where the color hadn't been able to meet them.

The others followed her gaze.

"Why does he put the cloths that far away?" Bailey wanted to know.

"He's not willin' to dirty 'em", Kim replied.

Sam nodded. "The cloths don't have to do anything with the person", she explained. "He's seeing them separated. That's why he doesn't color them as well."

"He punishes 'em", Kim murmured. "He don't have to punish the cloths."

"And besides, he humiliates them by doing this", Sam added quietly. "By removing their cloths."

Bailey nodded. "Especially when he removes them in public." He looked at Sam: "Is this the matter? The humiliation?"

Sam strictly shook her head. "No. No, I don't think so. I'd guess he doesn't see his victims as...persons but as a...a symbol for something. They symbolize something for him, and he tries to express this with the color."

John stepped next to them, holding his notepad in his hand.

Questioning Kim glanced at him.

He shrugged. "The witnesses haven't been really helpful", he told. "No one of 'em's watched the murder straight. Only one woman's seen a man runnin' away from the crime scene. At first sight she thought he'd be haunted or would have done somethin' bad, but shortly afterward the first patrol arrived, and that's why she's thinkin' now he'd called the police."

"Is she able to describe him?" Bailey wanted to know.

"Medium tall, dark coat, that's it. She said she'd been quite far away. Oh, and she thought him 'not to be from here, somehow'."

Irritated the agents exchanged a gaze.

"'Not to be from here, somehow' – what shall this mean?" Kim asked.

John shrugged. "She couldn't express it another way. I've given her my card, in case it should come to her mind what seemed odd to her with him."

Somehow no one of them believed really that the woman would ever call them.

Bailey sighed and shook his head. "We won't come further this way. We gotta find out what these victims are standin' for in the eyes of our doer; that means we need to know what the colors mean. This seems to be the key to this case. I'm gonna get the corpse taken to Grace to the pathology, and then we return to the office."

"Guess that means a lot of work for George and me", Kim murmured while walking to the car together with the others.

* * *

><p>Silently he watched the four FBI Agents and smiled to himself, but in a way nobody standing around him could see it.<p>

They were good, he had to acknowledge. He had been able to understand every word spoken by them from his place. Still they were miles away from solving this case, and of course they would come too late, but at least they were on the right track already. The colors would guide them if they could understand them – what would have to turn out later on. It would be fun to play with them.

Slowly, without hurry, he turned and left the crime scene.


	5. Home visit

Home visit

The crime scene photographs were a shock.

Not to the four agents having been at the place where the corpse had been found. But to the fifth, who hadn't been with them.

Like stony George stared at the photographs, his face suddenly without any color. Kim had asked Bailey for permission to show her colleague the pictures alone first, so that he wouldn't be confronted with them for the first time during the conference. She had presumed how shocking the sight would be to him. And Malone, who of course knew the history of his colleague, had said yes.

Silently the young woman watched her colleague and gave him time. She could imagine very well what was on his mind now.

He remembered, even though only vaguely, the new-Nazi animosities of his youth and the stories of his parents, who had been forced to leave their German home in the nineteen-thirties because they had had to flee from Adolf Hitler. Pictures flashed through his mind... _a burning house... older boys chasing a little one... mocking laughter... disguised figures calling hate-filled slogans... graffiti on gravestones... _George staggered.

Quickly Kim gripped his arm and made him sit down. "Are you okay?"

Fraley nodded and looked at her. "Is he..." He broke off, drew a deep breath to steady his trembling voice then started once again: "Is he a new-Nazi?"

Kim, Sam, Bailey and John had also discussed this possibility while driving back to VCTF headquarters, but had come to the conclusion that it was more likely that it was not this way. "We don't think so", Kim responded quietly. "There were no hints on this with the other victims."

"So what shall the color mean instead?" George wanted to know.

"I've no idea", Kim confessed. "But we're gonna find out. I'm gonna go to meet Grace in the pathology now, together with Bailey and Sam – let's see what she can to tell us. And afterward we need as much information about our corpse as possible."

George nodded. He had steadied himself again and turned to his laptop without any hesitation. He knew what he had to do.

Grace received her colleagues as reserved as every time, but this was not due to the fact that she didn't want to see them in the pathology, as Kim had thought at the beginning. Grace just was this way. "What do you have for us, Grace?" Sam asked the first question.

Grace straightened up from her bowed posture and sighed. "It's a woman", she began. "I'd guess at the beginning of her forties, a Latino. She's been strangled like the others, but this time I've found particles under her finger nails that haven't been there with the other victims. I've sent them to the lab."

"What can you tell about the time of death?" Bailey asked.

"Between eleven and twelve last night", Grace replied.

The agents exchanged a gaze. The question marks over their heads were almost visible.

"Are you sure?" Sam made certain.

"Completely sure", Grace nodded. "The molding of the rigor mortis doesn't allow another conclusion." Then she looked up: "Is somethin' wrong?"

Kim's answer was a question in return. "What did he do with the corpse meanwhile?"

Questioning, confused and uncomprehending Grace let her gaze jump over between them. "Why?"

"I'm sure that she's been killed where she was found today morning", Sam explained. "But if he's killed her already last night – why was she found only in the morning?"

"He must have done somethin' else with her meanwhile", Bailey said. "It's just impossible that nobody would have found the corpse already within the night – not where he's placed her. Thanks for the information, Grace." Followed by the two profilers he left the pathology.

Back in their office they sat down in the conference room the second time this day, where George and John were already waiting for them. All gazes expectantly turned to Fraley.

"Now, what did you find out about our victim, George?" Bailey asked.

"Well, her name's Carina Marquéz; she's 44 and comes from Peru." On the basis of the photographs and the identity card the detectives of the AtlantaPD had confiscated it hadn't been hard on him to identify the dead. "She came to Atlanta two months ago together with her husband. They wanted to get a job here."

"Does she have a work permit?" John interrupted.

George nodded. "She has. All right. And she already had a job. She worked with the welfare department, as a secretary. She had to care for the Spanish questions."

Bailey leaned back and stared at the screen absent-minded. "A banker, a welfare-secretary, a model, a brothel owner. Different age, different social background, different family states. White, now a Latino... Where the hell is the connection?"

Sam and Kim exchanged a look. "Maybe we should have a look at the apartments of the victims", Sam suggested. "Maybe they could offer us a hint to search in which direction."

Uncertainly Malone stared at her then nodded. "Okay." He rose. "Let's go. George, go on searchin' for possible connections between the victims. We need a start!"

Because the case Carina Marquéz was the one to be the shortest time ago, they started with her apartment. Carina's husband let them in; composed, but nevertheless obviously deeply shaken by the death of his wife. He had nothing against to letting the agents take a look around in the apartment. While Kim and Bailey made themselves get an idea of the living conditions of the woman, Sam talked to the man to get an impression of Carina Marquéz as a human.

For Kim it wasn't the first time that she saw the apartment of a murder victim, but anyway it took her quite a lot of will power every time to force her way into the privacy of a dead. Thank God she didn't have to do much to get a feeling for the place. The emotions connected with it came to her on their own.

Meanwhile John did what he had been used to do when working as a cop: He searched through the personal belongings of the victim in the bedroom.

"Bailey, Kim – look at this!"

Curious the two went to him. "What do you have there?"

Grant was holding a letter in his hand, which was printed with the address of the victim beneath a sign all of them knew just too well.

"She got a letter from the prosecutin' attorney's office?" Kim asked irritated. "Why this?"

"Her husband shall answer us this question", Bailey replied and went to the kitchen. "Mr Marquéz, in the bedroom of your wife we've found a letter of the prosecutin' attorney's office of Atlanta. Can you tell us what this is?"

Marquéz looked up, and the expression in his eyes was too confused to be played. "No, I'm sorry, but I can't", he responded. "I never saw this letter. I didn't even know that Carina's got it."

Kim looked at the postmark. The letter had been delivered the 21st of October. Carina Marquéz had received it almost two weeks ago. It was open, so she had read it. "Might we read the letter?" the young woman asked carefully.

Marquéz nodded.

Kim pulled the letter out of the envelope and skimmed through it. "That's an information that a suit had been filed against your wife", she uttered – she had expected everything except this. "But the action's been dismissed. There was no reasonable suspicion of an offense." She looked up. "Did you know about this?"

"About the lawsuit?" Marquéz shook his head stunned. "No, Carina never told me 'bout this!"

"Maybe because it was dismissed", Sam guessed.

"May we take the letter?" Bailey wanted to know.

The man nodded once more. "If it helps you... But what does this mean for me now that my wife's been sued? Do I have to appear before the jury now, or something like that?" Harassed he looked up at the agents.

"No, Mr Marquéz", Sam calmed. "If the action was dismissed it can't be filed once more, especially not against you. Don't you worry!"

He nodded relieved.

The agents said goodbye, thanked him for having been allowed to take a look around and left the apartment.


	6. Answers and questions

Answers – and questions

From the car Bailey immediately called the headquarters. The lawsuit against the last murder victim could be a coincidence, but the agents didn't believe in such coincidences. "George, it's Bailey." With few words the Special Agent explained to his colleague what they had found. "Integrate the action into your search", he ordered and told the IT expert the case number of the plaint. "Maybe that's the connection we've been searchin' for. We're gonna meet half an hour from now in the office." Due to this found he wanted to decline the visits to the apartments of the other victims now.

There was quite a simple explanation why the dismissed action made the agents become that nervous: It prepared a new motive. If it turned out that all victims had been sued and all actions had been dismissed there was the possibility that the doer killed the victims for revenge. Probably he saw himself as a sort of Robin Hood, who wanted to fix an unfairness. This would also be an explanation for the efforts he had put into these murders. Unfortunately the letter had not answered the question who had sued Carina Marquéz.. Anyway the lawsuit could help the agents answering a lot of questions if it turned out to be the connection between all victims.

Twenty minutes later Bailey parked his black Jeep in the underground parking lot of the VCTF headquarters, and the four agents headed for the elevator.

In the office an unusual strained Grace Alvarez came to meet them. "Bailey, there's somethin' I must show you!" she called just from far away.

Malone nodded and gestured toward the conference room. "So do we. Just keep your news for another minute, Grace."

One after the other the five entered the conference room.

George Fraley looked up as they came in and nodded just when he caught Bailey's look. "You were right, the action was the key", he said.

The agents sat down and looked expecting at the screen on the back wall. Fraley also turned there, let some pictures appear next to each other on the screen by hitting some buttons then drew a deep breath. "Well, as I said, the action's been the key", he repeated the sentence said. "'cause it's been dismissed it doesn't appear anywhere in the official case files, only as a memorandum in the unofficial court files. I had to search for a while – and to take a not really...", he cast Bailey a glance hard to interpret, "...straight way – to find the names of the other victims...but I found 'em!" Another keystroke, and the corresponding pages of the court files appeared on the screen. With a few simple touches he marked the notes important to them, cut them out and put them next to each other so that they could be compared directly.

Kim skimmed through the notes and shook her head. "But with this we still don't know why and by who they've been sued."

George cast her a glance and grinned. "What do you think why I walked along an in-official way, Kim?" He bent over the table and gave a sheet of paper to every one of them. "All suits have been filed 'in the name of the people', and the reasons were trivialities each time."

Kim read the list and shook her head frowning. "That's why suits were filed? That's ridiculous, ain't it?"

George nodded smiling. "I don't get it either."

"It's not even the facts constitutin' an offense that are ridiculous", Bailey interfered, "but the reasons given. Look at this: The banker's been sued for fraud 'cause three of his clients have lost $40,000 in total with the last collapse in rates!"

"I've checked 'em. They were multimillionaires", Fraley added.

That made the action become even more ridiculous.

Bailey continued: "The charge against Daniel Caine, the brothel owner, is procuring for he would exploit the prostitutes."

"What's not true at all", Kim interrupted. "As we know, Caine ran a noble brothel, and the women workin' for him were not dependent on him. All of 'em had their own apartments, and some even had a regular job durin' the day."

With this this lawsuit was also invalid.

"The charge against the model is defamation because it was said that she'd called a colleague ugly", Kim went on.

"I know the interview you talk about. She's just said she'd doubt some of her colleagues to have chosen the right job by becomin' a model for they wouldn't fit into the stereotyped thinking of the beauty industry", Grace this time ruined the reason. "She never called anybody ugly."

"And Carina Marquéz?" Sam asked just to answer her own question right afterward, "She's been sued for abuse of authority. She was said to have cheated her fellows with the award of residence permits."

"But that's exactly been her job, hasn't it?" John shook his head.

"Exactly", Sam nodded. "That's why the action has been dismissed."

Bailey leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. "So now at last we've got a connection between the victims, a thread within this case. It's taken really enough time!" He leaned forward again: "George, who have the victims sued by?"

"'In the name of the people'", Fraley replied.

"So it was done by the prosecuting attorney's office", Malone stated the answer more precisely. And paused: "Stop – _only_ by the prosecuting attorney's office? There were no joint plaintiffs?"

George shook his head. "No, no one. All actions came from the attorney's office."

Bailey, Sam and Kim exchanged a glance, and the younger profiler reacted. "George, can you find out how long district attorney Jefferson's runnin' the district of Atlanta now?"

Fraley nodded and started to work.

"If the suits have all been filed since Jefferson's here, he's got to do somethin' with 'em", Kim said turned to her colleagues. "Surely not with the murders themselves, but probably he can give us a hint on the doer."

"Jefferson's runnin' the prosecuting attorney's office of Atlanta for almost exactly five months now", George reported. "All suits were filed later on, so they came from him – or at least he's known about all of 'em."

"So we gotta talk to Jefferson", Bailey said. "Maybe he's got a hint for us. But before, Grace, you'd tell us what you've found."

The pathologist nodded. "You asked yourself what the murderer did with the corpse of Carina Marquéz after he'd killed her. Well, I can't tell you exactly, but maybe this could be a help." She gave some photographs to George, who scanned them and put them next to each other on the screen. "That are photos of the particles I found under the finger nails of Carina Marquéz. The lab classified 'em as splinters of bricks, from an old cellar or somethin' like that."

"That's not really a help", Sam said. "There are hundreds of old cellars in Atlanta."

"I know", Grace responded. "I just thought it to be interesting 'cause I've found 'em mixed up with the color instead of beneath it."

With a mixture of shock and confusion Sam, Kim, Bailey and John looked at each other.

"This would mean she was still alive as the murder colored her", Sam uttered. "But if so it's impossible that he's colored her right on the crime scene for there we've found no corresponding traces."

"And on the crime scene there were also no bricks but only cobblestones and concrete", John said.

"So first he's drugged Carina Marquéz, then taken her away somewhere, colored her there and finally brought to the place where she was found for strangling here there", Kim summarized. "Why such an effort?"

"Folks, we must have been blind!" Bailey snorted. "Tell me, why didn't we ask ourselves earlier where he's colored the victims? In no crime scene there were traces of spray color found around the corpse! He must have taken every victim away before coloring it!"

"And that's as well an explanation for why there were absolutely no finger prints though he strangled all victims with bare hands", Grace added. "I didn't make it out earlier for its not surprising that the color destroys eventual prints. But I should have begun to wonder anyway."

Once again Sam gripped the crime scene photos of Carina Marquéz. "The victims mean something to him", she murmured. "That's why he's going through such a lot of trouble with them. We have to find out what they mean to him."


End file.
